National Study of Innovative and Promising Programs for Women Offenders, 1994-1995 (ICPSR 2788)

Citation

Morash, Merry, and Bynum, Timothy S. National Study of Innovative and Promising Programs for Women Offenders, 1994-1995. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02788.v1

Summary

The purpose of this study was to conduct a national-scale
evaluation of correctional facilities housing female offenders in
order to assess the effectiveness of current programs, including
alternative sanctions and treatment programs, and management
practices. The goal was to gather information on "what works for
which women" with respect to the program characteristics most related
to positive outcomes. The first stage of the study consisted of
gathering the opinions of administrators in state departments of
corrections, including state-level administrators and administrators
in institutions for women (Part 1). Administrators from jails that
housed women were also interviewed (Part 2). Data collected for Parts
1 and 2 focused on attitudes toward the influx of women into jails and
prisons, the needs of incarcerated women, and management and program
approaches for meeting those needs. Respondents were asked to identify
programs that in their view stood out as especially effective in
meeting the needs of incarcerated women. From this list of nominated
programs, researchers conducted 62 in-depth telephone interviews with
administrators of programs located in jails, prisons, and the
community (Part 3). A supplement to this study consisted of telephone
interviews with 11 program directors who headed mental health programs
that appeared to be "state of the art" for incarcerated women (Part
4). Variables in Parts 1-4 that concern the nominated programs include
the underlying principles guiding the programs, whom the programs
targeted, what types of staff were employed by the programs, the most
positive effects of the programs, and whether program evaluations had
been completed. Program effort variables found in Parts 1-4 cover
whether the programs focused on trying to treat substance abuse, stop
child abuse, provide women with nontraditional job skills, parenting
skills, HIV/AIDS education, and life skills, change cognitive
thinking, and/or promote self-esteem. Several variables common to
Parts 1-3 include whether the programs provided women with
follow-up/transitional help, helped to stimulate pre-release planning,
allowed visits between women and children, or used ex-offenders,
ex-substance users, volunteers, or outside community groups to work
with the women. Variables focusing on the types of assessment tools
used cover medical assessments, VD screening, reading/math ability
screening, mental health screening, substance abuse screening, needs
regarding children screening, and victim-spouse abuse
screening. Variables pertaining to institution management include
background knowledge needed to manage a facility, the types of
management styles used for managing female offenders, security and
other operational issues, problems with cross-sex supervision, and
handling complaints. Similar variables across Parts 1, 2, and 4 deal
with the impact of private or state funding, such as respondents'
views on the positive and negative outcomes of privatization and of
using state services. Both Parts 1 and 2 contain information on
respondents' views regarding the unique needs of women offenders,
which programs were especially for women, and which program needs were
more serious than others. Planning variables in Parts 1 and 2 include
whether there were plans to have institutions link with other state
agencies, and which programs were most in need of expansion. Further
common variables concerned the influx of women in prison, including
how administrators were dealing with the increasing number of women
offenders, whether the facilities were originally designed for women,
how the facilities adapted for women, and the number of women
currently in the facilities. In addition, Part 1 contains unique
variables on alternative, intermediate sanction options for women,
such as the percentage of women sent to day supervision/treatment and
sent to work release centers, why it was possible to use intermediate
sanctions, and how decisions were made to use intermediate
sanctions. Variables dealing with funding and the provision of
services to women include the type of private contractor or government
agency that provided drug treatment, academic services, and vocational
services to women, and the nature of the medical and food services
provided to women. Variables unique to Part 2 pertain to the type of
offender the jail housed, including whether the jurisdiction had a
separate facility for pretrial or sentenced offenders, the total rated
capacity of the jail, the average daily population of pretrial
females, whether the jail was currently housing state inmates, and the
impact on local inmates of being housed with state inmates. Variables
concerning classification and assessment focused on the purpose of the
classification process for female offenders, whether the
classification process was different for male and female offenders,
and a description of the process used. Variables specific to Part 3
deal with characteristics of the participants, such as whether program
participants were involved in a case management system, the
approximate number of women and men participating in the programs,
whether offenders were tried and awaiting sentence or were on
probation, and the number of hours a week that individuals
participated in the program. Program structure variables include
whether the program was culture- or gender-specific, restrictions on
program participants, and who established the
restrictions. Programming strategy variables cover identifying
strategies used for meeting the needs of women offenders with short
sentences, strategies for women with long sentences, and what stood in
the way of greater use of intermediate sanctions. Part 4 contains
variables on the size of the mental health program/unit, including the
number of beds in the mental health unit, the number of beds set aside
for different types of diagnoses, and the number of women served
annually. Diagnosis variables provide information on who was
responsible for screening women for mental health needs, whether women
were re-evaluated at any time other than at intake, and the most
common mental health problems of women in the unit. Variables on
running the program include whether the program/unit worked with
private or public hospitals, the factors that hindered coordination of
services among local or state facilities, the types of services
affected by budget constraints, and the strategies used to prevent
women from harming themselves and others. Staffing variables cover the
number of psychologists, social workers, nurses, and correctional
officers that worked in the mental health unit. Demographic variables
were similar for all four data files. These include the institution
level, the type of respondent interviewed, respondents' gender and
educational background, and the number of years they had been in their
positions, were employed in corrections, and had worked in women's
facilities.

Citation

Morash, Merry, and Bynum, Timothy S. National Study of Innovative and Promising Programs for Women Offenders, 1994-1995. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2006-03-30. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02788.v1

Geographic Coverage

Distributor(s)

Time Period(s)

1994 -- 1995

Date of Collection

1994 -- 1995

Data Collection Notes

The user guide, codebooks, and data collection
instruments are provided as Portable Document Format (PDF) files. The
PDF file was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated and can be
accessed using PDF reader software, such as Adobe Acrobat
Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat Reader is
provided on the ICPSR Website.

Study Purpose

Despite recent increases in the female offender
population, very little evaluation research had been conducted on the
effectiveness of institutional programming with this population, and
much remained unknown about what made programs and practices effective
for women offenders. The limited evaluation research juxtaposed with
the increasing number of incarcerated women, and the multifaceted
nature of problems that contribute to their criminality, underscored
the need for further research. Several unique characteristics of the
female inmate population are relevant to programming for and
management of institutions: (1) a high proportion of women report
prior sexual or physical abuse, (2) a high proportion of women report
being under the influence of a drug at the time of their offense (with
over half reporting daily use of drugs the month before their offense,
and several reporting daily use of a major drug that month), (3) there
have been recent, rapid increases in the proportion of sentenced women
with a drug offense charge, (4) the majority of women in prison have
children under the age of 18 years old, and most of them had children
living with them before coming to prison, (5) less than half of the
women had been working during the month before their arrest, and (6) a
markedly higher proportion of women than men are serving time for
having killed a family member, ex-spouse, or other intimate. The
situation for women in jails may be even more difficult than for women
in prisons. The inadequacy of the mental health system and the
overcrowding of the prison system have resulted in large numbers of
women, with a variety of problems, spilling over into jails. Many
jailed women are housed in a "women's unit" within a facility
primarily designed for men. The purpose of this study was to generate
a national-scale evaluation of correctional facilities housing female
offenders in order to assess the effectiveness of current programs,
including alternative sanctions and treatment programs, and management
practices. The goal was to gather information on "what works for
which women" with respect to the program characteristics most related
to positive outcomes.

Study Design

This study was designed to be a national-scale
evaluation of correctional institutions. Part 1 consisted of a
comprehensive assessment of the opinions of administrators in state
departments of corrections, including state-level administrators and
administrators in institutions for women. A state-level correctional
administrator was surveyed by mail in all 50 states. For the follow-up
telephone survey, in seven states researchers were able to interview
the commissioner or deputy director of corrections. In another 19
states, the interview was done with a high-level administrator with
responsibility for areas such as planning, programming, or programming
for women, and in eight states information on the overall system of
corrections was collected from an individual other than an
administrator at a woman's facility. At the institution level, mailed
surveys were received from 65 prison facilities and telephone
interviews were conducted with administrators in 54 of these. The
criteria for excluding some of the 65 prisons from the telephone
interview was that they were located in the same state as another
comparable institution that had already been chosen for a phone
interview. Data from the institution-level surveys are attached to
the record of the state where the institution was located. For Part 2,
interviews were conducted with 54 jail administrators from county/city
jurisdictions that housed women offenders. Data collected included
mail and telephone reports of responses to the influx of women into
jails and prisons, the needs of incarcerated women, and management and
program approaches to meeting those needs. Respondents were asked to
identify programs that in their view stood out as especially effective
in meeting the needs of incarcerated women. From this list of
nominated programs, researchers conducted 62 in-depth telephone
interviews with administrators of programs located in jails, prisons,
and the community (Part 3). Program administrator survey questions
were designed to generate information on these effective programs, how
they began, availability of evaluation results, and staff. The main
issues considered in the selection of programs from treatment areas
for in-depth interviews were: (1) representation of programming or
administrative approach to address the range of frequently identified
problems, (2) availability of evaluation results, and (3) evidence of
program relevance to special needs, for example, related to unique
problems of women, race, ethnicity, or type of crime. A direct attempt
was also made to sample programs that were neutral on stereotypes or
that challenged women's dependence or limitation to traditional
roles. A supplement to this study consisted of telephone interviews
with 11 program directors who headed mental health programs that
appeared to be "state of the art" for incarcerated women (Part 4). For
all parts, mail surveys concentrated on factual information, while
phone surveys more often focused on obtaining opinions and
descriptions of practices, the needs of offenders, and implementation
difficulties. Much of the data was collected as qualitative
information, then coded into categorical information.

Sample

Part 1: Not applicable. Part 2: Stratified random
sampling. Parts 3 and 4: Nonprobability sample of programs nominated
by state administrators.

Universe

All correctional institutions holding women offenders in
the United States.

Unit(s) of Observation

Part 1: States. Parts 2-4: Individuals.

Data Source

Data Type(s)

survey data

Description of Variables

Variables in Parts 1-4 that concern the nominated
programs include the underlying principles guiding the programs, whom
the programs targeted, what types of staff were employed by the
programs, the most positive effects of the programs, and whether
program evaluations had been completed. Program effort variables found
in Parts 1-4 cover whether the programs focused on trying to treat
substance abuse, stop child abuse, provide women with nontraditional
job skills, parenting skills, HIV/AIDS education, and life skills,
change cognitive thinking, and/or promise self-esteem. Several
variables common to Parts 1-3 include whether the programs provided
women with follow-up/transitional help, helped to stimulate
pre-release planning, allowed visits between women and children, or
used ex-offenders, ex-substance users, volunteers, or outside
community groups to work with the women. Variables focusing on the
types of assessment tools used cover medical assessments, VD
screening, reading/math ability screening, mental health screening,
substance abuse screening, needs regarding children screening, and
victim-spouse abuse screening. Variables pertaining to institution
management include background knowledge needed to manage a facility,
the types of management styles used for managing female offenders,
security and other operational issues, problems with cross-sex
supervision, and handling complaints. Similar variables across Parts
1, 2, and 4 deal with the impact of private or state funding, such as
respondents' views the positive outcomes of privatization and of using
state services. Both Parts 1 and 2 contain information on respondents'
views regarding the unique needs of women offenders, which programs
were especially for women, and which program needs were more serious
than others. Planning variables in Parts 1 and 2 include whether
there were plans to have institutions link with other state agencies,
and which programs were most in need of expansion. Further common
variables concerned the influx of women in prison, including, how
administrators were dealing with the increasing number of women
offenders, whether the facilities were originally designed for women,
how the facilities adapted for women, and the number of women
currently in the facilities. In addition, Part 1 contains unique
variables on alternative, intermediate sanction options for women,
such as, the percentage of women sent to day supervision/treatment and
sent to work release centers, why it was possible to use intermediate
sanctions, and how decisions were made to use intermediate
sanctions. Variables dealing with funding and the provision of
services to women include the type of private contractor or government
agency that provided drug treatment, academic services, and vocational
services to women, and the nature of the medical and food services
provided to women. Variables unique to Part 2 pertain to the type of
offender the jail housed, including whether the jurisdiction had a
separate facility for pretrial or sentenced offenders, the total rated
capacity of the jail, the average daily population of pretrial
females, whether the jail was currently housing state inmates, and the
impact on local inmates of being housed with state inmates. Variables
concerning classification and assessment focused on the purpose of the
classification process for female offenders, whether the
classification process was different for male and female offenders,
and a description of the process used. Variables specific to Part 3
deal with characteristics of the participants, such as whether program
participants was involved in a case management system, the approximate
number of women and men participating in the programs, whether
offenders were tried and awaiting sentence or were on probation, and
the number of hours a week that individuals participated in the
program. Program structure variables include whether the program was
culture or gender-specific, restrictions on program participants, and
who established the restrictions. Programming strategy variables cover
identifying strategies used for meeting the needs of women offenders
with short sentences, strategies for women with long sentences, and
what stood in the way of greater use of intermediate sanctions. Part 4
contains variables on the size of the mental health program/unit,
including the number of beds in the mental health unit, the number of
beds set aside for different types of diagnoses, and the number of
women served annually. Diagnosis variables provide information on who
was responsible for screening women for mental health needs, whether
women were re-evaluated at any time other than at intake, and the most
common mental health problem of women in the unit. Variables on
running the program include whether the program/unit worked with
private or public hospitals, the factors that hindered coordination of
services among local or state facilities, the types of services
affected by budget constraints, and the strategies used to prevent
women from harming themselves and others. Staffing variables cover the
number of psychologists, social workers, nurses, and correctional
officers that worked in the mental health unit. Demographic variables
were similar for all four data files. These include the institution
level, the type of respondent interviewed, respondents' gender and
educational background, and the number of years they had been in their
positions, were employed in corrections, and had worked in women's
facilities.

Response Rates

Part 1: The response rate from state
administrators was 100 percent for both the mail survey and the phone
survey. Institution-level administrators had a response rate of 93
percent for the mail survey and 96 percent for the phone survey. Part
2: The response rate from jail administrators was 89 percent for the
mail survey and 93 percent for the phone survey. Part 3: Program
administrators had a response rate of 87 percent for the telephone
interview. Part 4: The response rate for the mental health program
survey was 100 percent for the telephone interview.

Presence of Common Scales

Original Release Date

2000-08-28

Version Date

2006-03-30

Version History

2006-03-30 File UG2788.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.

2000-08-28 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Notes

These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented.